Observe The Handiwork Believe In The Hands

On a recent flight from London to New York – 7 1/2 hours – I saw something that made me think of God’s relationship to the universe.

A lady sitting one row in front of me and one seat to the right was knitting. I could see her hands through the space between the seats and to keep my mind off flying I watched the needles and tried to figure out exactly what she was doing.

No luck. She went so fast and the patterns changed so frequently I could never quite get the movements right.

But, the outcome was amazing. At the end of the flight – she knitted for seven hours straight – the finished product was beautiful yet complex. I couldn’t understand the finished product either – it would take a lot of time and investigation to figure it out – but I couldn’t deny the intelligence and precision that went into producing it.

I never really understood what she was doing with her hands and a brief look at the knitted results couldn’t help me understand how the strands were woven together but it really made me think.

If the only thing I saw was her hands there is no telling what I would have thought. It just looked like a lot of nervous jittering and twitching activity. The only reason I knew it was knitting is because I had seen it before. Seeing both her hand movements and the finished product helped but I still didn’t understand how she did it, even when I watched.

I realized from watching that every loop was knitted in with no tolerance for error. One mistake and the whole thing would be out of balance. I also realized that we often see and admire the finished product never questioning the industry, intelligence and deliberation that went into making it. We ooh and aah and compliment the one who made it even though we didn’t see them do it.

The same is true of the universe. It is a complex system of light, force, mass and space all of which are interlaced to create a beautiful yet finely balanced environment.

We are fascinated by it and have spent a lot of time and effort studying it but there are some who question the fact that God did it or that it was intelligently arranged by a personal being.

What skeptics would like to see, but can’t, and would never understand if they could, are the hands of God knitting all things together and then keeping it that way. And the Bible actually describes some of God’s ongoing creative activities as knitting.

The Psalmist, speaking to God, said…

“You knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139:13)

That is still happening. Babies are being knitted together thousands of times everyday and the outcome is amazing.

Scientists have studied the process closely and from a biological/chemical point of view understand what is happening. What they don’t know is how God puts it all together. They can’t see God’s hands at work and they can’t duplicate the process. I doubt it would help if they could actually see His hands while He worked.

They also can’t figure out how each baby comes with its own unique soul which has individual personal abilities and moral qualities as well, not to mention a sense for the spiritual. Because they can’t see God’s hands at work they doubt He is there at all.

The Psalmist also spoke to this issue…

The sky shows God’s handiwork. (Psalm 19:1)

Not His hands, His handiwork. That is to say we can see the works of His hands without seeing His hands at work.

Some doubt this and use the invisibility of His hands to suggest He isn’t working or possibly He isn’t there at all. It would, however, be just as ridiculous to suggest that our world, which is far more complex than a sweater, wasn’t intentionally knitted together by a personal being, strand by strand, in the same way a sweater is.

Yes, it does require faith to believe God did it all and you can disbelieve if you wish but it takes a hocus pocus mentality to think the universe is the product of random chance.

The next time someone says, “I have never seen God do some particular thing,” just tell them it wouldn’t make sense if they had but, the finished product is so exacting and precise it would take a lot to prove He wasn’t behind it all.

3 Comments on Observe The Handiwork Believe In The Hands

I actually disagree with this. I think people CAN see his hands at work. Here is a good example: When the Spanish first came to the Americas the natives thought that when a man was riding a horse that he was one with the horse, they didn’t understand that the man and the horse were 2 separate entities. It is the same way with the making of babies, and chemical reactions. God is never off the job and is always working his tools be that DNA, sodium, oxygen, or anything, and as such we think that God and his tools are 1 entity when really one is tool and the other is God. If God was not present, then it could not take place. now granted God can make the tools so things can take place just because he wants to example of this is Mary and the Virgin Birth. Mary has never known a man so there no way the tools were there to make the baby Jesus… but he came about all the same. God not only worked the tools he fashioned the from scratch… but like knitting needles, they can not work without the hands to guide them and they will also not work without yarn to knit. But we recognize hands because they sometimes set the needles and yarn down, God does not.

Thanks for the visit MM and the comment. I certainly can’t say your logic is faulty. The horse and rider analogy is a good illustration. And, even if we could see the rider but not the horse it would still be difficult to deny the horse wasn’t there.

We are almost saying the same thing. You are saying God CAN be seen and I am saying He can’t be denied.

Maybe, instead of saying, “I wish more people could see it,” I should say “I wish more people would admit to it.” Its not really that difficult to see.

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